The networked computing environment (e.g., cloud computing environment) is an enhancement to the predecessor grid environment, whereby multiple grids and other computation resources may be further enhanced by one or more additional abstraction layers (e.g., a cloud layer), thus making disparate devices appear to an end-consumer as a single pool of seamless resources. These resources may include such things as physical or logical computing engines, servers and devices, device memory, storage devices, among others.
Presently, cloud computing service providers may require highly variable periods of time (e.g. ranging from several minutes to several hours) to provision resources requested by consumers. Differences in provisioning speed are generally a function of different variables, e.g. the type and sophistication of infrastructure utilized in a storage architecture; the architecture of a cloud management platform; and methods used to provision resources. As such, challenges can exist in obtaining predictable and consistent provisioning times for cloud computing resources such as VMs.